Legacy
by HayltotheChief
Summary: AU: What do you do when you come to the conclusion of your life's dream? Do you fall head over heels for a new acquaintance? Do you find the elusive happiness you've been searching for your entire life? Or do you protect your legacy above all else?
1. Valete

**Disclaimer: I do not own this work or anything that therein lies. All belongs to the omnipotent Shonda Rhimes (except for the lyrics of "Party in the U.S.A." by Miley Cyrus).**

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><p><strong>Chapter One: Valete<strong>

It doesn't happen in an instant. It's not a blink and you miss it type of event - no one knows exactly when it is, although it technically is at noon eastern standard time on January twenty-first, on the year after a presidential election, in this case, 2013. But when is it really? Is it the election? Which one? Your second one, or Reston's first successful bid? Is it lame duck-ness, or is it term-limited-ness? Or is it the swearing-in ceremony for your successor at the Capitol? Whenever it is, it's the transition from leader of the free world to Everyman. From president to poor old fart giving speeches for hundreds of thousands of dollars and painting pictures of family and making occasional cameos on the Today Show. From imposter to actual man of the people. From the White House to a ranch in Santa Barbara. From having a plethora of staffers at your beck and call to almost none. From being a temporary king to just another subject. From having a say to being fondly referenced by your biggest critics while remaining respectably above the fray. From having the world watch your every move to having a degree of freedom for the first time in your life - although, you still have your legacy.

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><p>It had been building up to this for a while. The end. You knew it, everybody knew it. The beginning of the end of an era. You were a lame duck, a well-regarded duck, but a lame duck nonetheless. You'd seen the speeches, the debates, the results flowing in, but this...this was real. It was the end. You and your wife had finished moving everything out of that great White House on a hill two days ago. You'd summoned your kids back, and choked back a sob at how much of their lives you'd missed because of this job. The highest job in the land, yes, but that is no excuse for abandoning your children. Your daughter is poised, elegant, off to follow her older brother (and parents, and grandparents...) to Harvard next year. Your oldest son, who you remember that you must caution about the life your wife and father were steering him into, stands tall and proud, with his W.A.S.P., D.A.R., blue blood, old money, beautiful, and intelligent (and last but certainly not least, hand picked by your father and wife) girlfriend next to him. Seven year-old Teddy rounds out the bunch, the product of a sex scandal (false, thank god). You resolve to do better, be a father to the trio, as you start to say your goodbyes to this life.<p>

The conversation you have with Reston, president-elect, is...stilted. That is the word. One of those mandatory chats that are completely and utterly awkward. You'd beaten him not once, but twice. You would have beaten him again, if you had the desire and it was legal. The pair of you fake smiles and say perfectly innocuous meaningless drivel. He asks you what your secret was and you crack a joke about keeping your pants zipped. He laughs, a short chuckle that sounds almost as realistic as Nelson's from the Simpsons. Ha ha. Ha ha. Your wife would have loved it.

You pose for a photo-op with your wife, Reston, and his wife and then are directed into a car with him, where the pair of you ignore the other and instead wave to the crowds. You are a reminder of his humiliation to him; he is a reminder of the culmination of everything you've worked for and done your entire life. Needless to say, the two of you will never form a good rapport (even though you declined to endorse his challenger, Sally, your Vice President. But she was crazy, and you didn't endorse Reston, either). You watch him wave to the populace out of the corner of your eyes and contemplate how good of a president he'll be. It largely depends on the person's caliber (intelligence, friends, charisma, and looks) and external circumstances (also known as luck, or the lack thereof). You can't really predict it, other than pegging him as the presidential type. He'll be judged by history, of course, and so will you, although right now, you're looking pretty good. Better than him, certainly.

You watch the invocation from a famous pastor, and then hear songs. Pre-recorded songs. You easily hold back your laughter; you've been doing it for years. And, then a woman, who you suppose that you should know, beautifully delivers "My Country 'Tis of Thee." People cry. You stand forgotten grimly smiling. Then what appears to be a deranged anorexic teenager sings a song that you would happily never hear again; she croaks something along the lines of

"It's a party in the U.S.A.

Yeah-eah-eeaheh, it's a party in the U.S.A.," and so on and so forth.

Finally, after a stunning classical piece, the main event...the vice-presidential oath. Because you know that everybody just loves vice presidents. He recited to Associate Justice Murray Randall, "I, Jack George Shaw, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

And right after, you watch Reston take the oath from the position where you stood four and eight years ago, respectively (and aren't too far from now). He stands with his wife, Joan, who's having an affair (Reston knows, and you do too), and daughter, Marie.

"I, Samuel William Reston," the Chief Justice, Verna Thornton recites.

"I, Samuel William Reston," Reston follows.

"Do solemnly swear," she feed him.

"Do solemnly swear," he parrots.

"That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States."

"That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States."

"And will to the best of my ability."

"And will, to the best of my ability."

"Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

"Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

"So help you god?"

"So help me god."

They shake hands, and you sigh. Time to get the hell out of Dodge, or in this case, D.C. Before the president even gives his inauguration address, you and your wife are escorted out of the Capitol by Reston, well, after your Vice President and her husband were escorted out by her successor. The three of you don't speak, only place one foot in front of the other, which you realize was strange later, because even your wife refrained from her ubiquitous fake and glib comments. You and your wife board a helicopter and wave goodbye to everyone watching as you let out the breath that you didn't realize you were holding. This, you decide as the helicopter takes off and gains altitude, this is the end of your presidency. Welcome to the legacy part, Fitz.

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><p><strong>AN: Hi!**

**This is my first fanfic, and I hope you enjoyed it. I know that I've written it in second-person. If you don't like that, don't read this. I personally find it fascinating, both to read and write, but I digress. Future chapters will be longer, but I felt that this one should end there. Please compliment, criticize, suggest, comment, and/or whatever else you can think of.**

**Thanks,**

**Hayl**

**P.S. When all is said and done, Olitz will live on! They must!**

**P.S.S. Valete means "farewell" in Latin when speaking to a group of people. It is from valeō, which means "I am well, healthy."**


	2. Stirring the Pot

Disclaimer: I do not own this work or anything that therein lies. All belongs to the omnipotent Shonda Rhimes.

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><p><strong>Chapter Two: Stirring the Pot<strong>

You earnestly stir your coffee with the provided spoon, as if hoping that the caffeinated beverage will magically show you the solution to your problems; instead, your action just causes the heart-shaped dollop of cream in the center to disperse. Your friend looks on with a frown.

"What's wrong?" she asks. You just continue with your stirring motions. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You idly wonder why the saying isn't forth and back, which sounds weird, but perhaps because you've just never heard it before. "Liv?" Abby jolts you from your pondering. "You're scaring me. Stop acting like your pet monster, Huck."

You snort. If only life was that simple: the monsters in the closets who scare the living crap out of your kind versus the humans. The scary devils stalking the good little humans. Sadly, the monsters in this life more often than not turn out to be not hiding in the closet, but sleeping in the bed next to you. Even Abby knew that to be true. "It's Edison," you finally say after a long pause.

"Has Snores hurt you?" Abby asks, horrified. "I'd be happy to return the favor you did for me, Liv. You don't even need to ask."

"He hasn't hurt me, not physically. He wouldn't," you say quickly.

"Then what did Snores do?" Abby demands.

"You shouldn't call him 'Snores,'" you frown.

"He doesn't snore?" she says, pretending to be shocked. The look on your face gave Edison's nightly wheezing away before you could even issue a half-hearted denial. "Anyway, your husband is a two hundred pound stick of boring, Liv. He's so boring that Quinny once fell asleep and started snoring rather loudly while Snores was lecturing us about...oh, yeah, annual tortoise imports to the U.S. Nobody cares! I thought politicians were supposed to be charismatic! Like that Grant. Even though he's a Republican, I'd be happy to get behind him!"

"He's married," you respond.

"You think I haven't screwed married men before? Now, stop evading my questions, Liv."

"I wasn't evading your questions," you mutter like a petulant child who wants to keep sucking on her lollipop. "Edison...well, Edison...he...he...I'm just going to say this quickly and get it over with: he threatened to take away the funding for HANDLED if I don't become the consummate political wife and come back to the U.S. and show up at parties instead of 'running around Africa like a chicken with its head cut off.' His words. Oh, and if that wasn't bad enough, he demanded that we start trying."

"Trying for a child?" Abby asked, thoroughly horrified. "He tells you to help his political career instead of the millions of children which your organization has helped, and then had the nerve to tell you to carry his child? What the hell?" she screamed, startling the patrons seated near the pair of you.

"Not so loud," you implore her.

"Are you going to do it?" Abby asked. You look away. "Liv," she moans.

"I have to," you quickly say. "I can't let him kill my baby. I've been caring her for seven years, and I can't just sit aside and watch my husband condemn her to a slow death. We need funding from Congress, and he knows that I know that he could and would stop it."

"He wouldn't stop the funding, Liv! He's not an idiot! Besides, you're a gladiator. Gladiators don't give up! They slay dragons. They wipe off the blood and stitch up their wounds and live to fight another day. You don't get to give up!"

You sigh and start crying. She looks surprised and drapes her arm around you. "There comes a point," you whimper. "There comes a point when you need to give up the reins to someone else to live to fight another day. Edison's the senate majority leader, Abby. One word, and I become known as a whore and nobody will go near HANDLED. I have to, for the sake of the organization. Make sense?"

"No!" she cries. "You can fight him! You're a Nobel Peace Prize winner, for god's sake! You can beat a boring, overweight congressman."

"The thing is, Abby, that if Edison divorced me and said that I was - I don't know, a promiscuous bitch who only got the prize because I slept my way to the top, the public would believe him because he's Senate Majority Leader."

"Mister Integrity wouldn't do that, Liv."

"And they would stop donating to HANDLED," you continue as if you didn't hear her. "And the millions around the world who depend on it would be left out in the cold to starve intellectually. I can choose my successor. Believe me, this is the best path. I've looked at it from all the angles, and, I need to do this."

"Seriously, Liv! You should just divorce him and go on CNN or MSNBC or NBC or maybe even Fox - god knows Rupert Murdoch would love Snores's head on a platter - and explain what he said to them!"

"That would fail. He's too powerful. Just support me, Abby. I'm doing this, no matter what you say, and I need someone by my side."

"Of course, Liv," she sighs, "A friend in need is a friend indeed, as they say. But you are going to regret this, trust me. Just tell me that you're not going to carry the bastard's child."

"Believe me," you say. "Edison has ensured that I will never, ever carry a creature that is even a little bit of him inside me."

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><p>You trudge into the regional headquarters of HANDLED. HANDLED, formally named the Humanitarian Assistance for Nations Developing for Learning and EDucation (or as Abby might call it, a mouthful), which you'd been nursing since its conception a mere eight years ago while you were visiting Africa with your father. Even though you were extensively read on the subject, you were still shocked to see how little computers there were there, even with the advent of online learning opportunities, like Khan Academy, and the general squalor. You resolved to change that. You used Edison, your father and his contacts, to try and be the catalyst. Doyle Energy, and its subsidiary, Doyle Oil, were your main benefactors. Although it scared you to make a deal with the devil, you believed then that the ends outweighed the means. What could Hollis Doyle do with an enterprise whose sole purpose was to provide inexpensive computers to the underprivileged souls in other countries? Honestly, you were scared to find out.<p>

But you took his money anyway. You brokered deals with Intel, Google, HP, and others (but not Apple - cost) to get cheap netbooks and chromebooks. You had Stephen charm donors, although, knowing Stephen, he probably did more than just charm them. Huck helped set up the infrastructure: the WiFi networks, the distribution networks, and the computer design. Abby even helped you with the PR. Harrison helped you convince their governments that your intentions were pure. Quinn helped Huck and even piloted the ship with the supplies and drove trucks all over Africa while blasting cheesy country music (especially a rather pointless song titled "Drunk on a Plane") loud enough to disrupt the countryside. And, of course, there were many others assisting the organization in addition your closest friends, like the new Attorney General, then-US Attorney David Rosen, who helped clear up the legal issues stateside, and the countless other staffers who weren't part of your crazy college experience some twenty-odd years ago. All told, your pet project had provided over ten million impoverished children with computers to surf the internet and the WiFi to accomplish it. And the number was growing, even now, although the issues of its infancy were gone. That was part of the reason you were leaving: it had already grown up (although you were still loath to admit it out loud). Truth be told, you needed a new baby.

You walked into your small office, and packed up all of your personal possessions. You would rather skip the walk of shame. The pictures of you and Edison went in the box you were packing. Your computer, your signature popcorn and red wine stash, your old college photos, the most recent draft of your will, all of those find their way into the box. You survey the office once you finish and shiver. It looks like a ghost town, or a haunted house, completely bereft of any and all personal effects. You turn to leave - you can't get out quickly enough - and stumble down the stairs to run out of the lobby. Once you've finished gasping in the cold air and trying to calm yourself, you drive home, or, well, as close to home as any place can get with Edison in it. You sit down, pour yourself a glass of wine, and decide to just relax and not think the rest of the night. But your plans soon get interrupted; you are called by another person who would be counted among the recently jobless: Cyrus Beene, the former president's chief of staff. You immediately press the accept button - it's been too long since the pair of you have talked - and ask, per usual, "What?"

"Hi, hello, how are you?" he chides.

"Hi, hello, how are you?" you respond back with a laugh.

"Not bad. Are you free for lunch next week?" he asks.

"You call me up after eight years and ask me out lunch?" you ask incredulously.

"I was busy, and you're busy, too. Anyway, I just want to check in with my favorite protege."

"Is twelve on Thursday good?" you ask.

"All I do is garden and play with Ella - have you met her and James? You couldn't make the wedding, so I don't think you have. Regardless, any and every time works. The Blue Duck Tavern okay?"

You laugh. "It's good. See you then," you respond and end the call. You pick up your exceptionally large glass of wine and swish it around while staring at the burgundy liquid contained within, you and realize that all you want is a peek at the answer sheet, a glimpse of the future, a promise, a certainty, just a hint of your eventual legacy. You take a sip and raise the glass, and laugh and cheekily say "Cheers!" to the ghost of your future.

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><p><strong>AN: Hi!**

**I hope you enjoyed reading! This story will alternate from Fitz and Liv's perspectives. And, to answer one reviewer's question, Fitz's wife is nameless and faceless by design :). She's like Mellie but she's worse. A lot worse. Also, I realize that Liv's reasoning and arguments with Abby are horrible. Liv does too. It's purposely bad logic (or maybe the lack thereof). Reviews are appreciated!**

**Thanks,**

**Hayl**


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